Loci
by Samjez
Summary: A missing Sherlock leads a small team of John, Greg, and Sally to a Victorian styled mansion filled to the brim with secrets- Because in reality, this mansion might actually be a pristine palace.
1. Chapter 1

A house on a hill.

It really shouldn't have crept out the trio as much as it did—it was just a lonesome abandoned mansion a couple hours away from London, tucked away in a corner. It loomed over the three, creating an aura of superiority. With its Victorian styled exterior and its almost posh outer decorations, it was a wonder how the poor palace was not immediately bought up by some rich aristocrat. Maybe it was haunted. The shadows and the rain enveloped them in coldness, forcing the thought of going inside to the front of everyone's mind. If mansions could have personalities, then this house had the persona like a god complex.

And, apparently, the world's only consulting detective was last seen going into this house.

"Are you sure he's in there?" The army doctor asked. The guilt he created himself for not going with him hung heavy on his shoulders. He wanted his friend back.

"Well, no. This was where we last picked up his cell signal before it dropped off the face of the earth." The detective inspector replied, his voice gruff from the night before. He could have used his colleague to track down a criminal last night, but he was long gone, leaving the yard to fend for themselves. He wanted his best worker back.

"And when was that?"

"About three days ago, give or take."

"…Right."

And all the while, the sergeant prattled away on her phone, not caring in the least. Dragged along for the ride by her boss; she wanted to find the freak quickly so she could go home.

The overwhelming urge to go inside soon made everyone inch closer to the door, in an attempt to escape the rain.

"Shall we go in? It's not like we are gonna find him standing out here…"

"Do you think we could hurry this search party up? I'm sure the freak can take care of himself." Sally didn't even look up from her phone—she was much too busy for a stupid case involving Sherlock. To look for Sherlock Holmes would be looking for an overgrown child; he would eventually show his head for dinner after 'running away' for a couple days.

She soon found her overcoat drenched, as the two men moved the singular umbrella that everyone was sharing away from Sally. The nerve!

"Really guys? Ugh, how come everyone I work with is so—"

"—Immature?" Greg cut in. This elicited a giggle from the boys. "It's your fault for badmouthing Sherlock. He's a nice person Donnovan, maybe you should try—"

"I'm not trying anything! Can we just go in and find him, so we can go home?" Her soaked clothes put a chill down her back, making here more irritable then before.

"Do you want to stay in the car? I'm sure we can find him perfectly without your help." John hated to admit it, but Sherlock's sheer hatred for some people was beginning to rub off on him. It didn't help that Sally wasn't exactly nice either.

"John, she isn't staying in the car. She's coming inside _with us._"

John and Sally let out a defeated groan at the same time, while Greg grinned from ear to ear. Working with these two was going to be _interesting. _He closes the sopping wet umbrella before going in. It's only the polite thing to do.

With no owner of the house, Scotland Yard didn't have to retrieve a warrant to enter. They didn't think that the door would be completely unlocked however, as the door swung open easily, revealing the inner workings of the ancient mansion. They treaded slowly inside, listening to the echoes of their footsteps on the marble flooring. Even the foyer was impressive in size; John wondered if the place was bigger on the inside. He fumbled for a switch on the side of the wall, (odd, this place has been abandoned in the middle of nowhere for years. Why would there be electricity in the place?) which in turn made the chandelier that hung high above their heads to flicker on and show the small search party the room in its fullest. Why was such a marvel of craftsmanship sitting unused? Greg placed the soggy brolly on a coat rack sitting by the door. They had work to do, a detective to find.

"…Where are the cobwebs and the dust?" John questioned. If there was any time to show off what he had learned from his friend, it was now. "…If this mansion is so _abandoned _like everyone says, where are the cobwebs? It's surprisingly clean in here for a place that hasn't been used in at least a hundred years…"

Sally looked up from her phone long enough to swipe her fingers against a nearby dresser. John was right; the place was so sterile it was creepy. Before she had the chance to go back to her text conversation, her phone sputtered it's last before it died.

"Phone's dead…"

"Well good, now you can help us find Sherlock,"

"Not like you blokes are doing much anyway, you two are just browsing through shelves. You think he's going to be in a cardboard box or something? Can I go back to the car and grab my phone charger?"

No reply from the boys rummaging through the spotless foyer drawers. She griped. Why did she even need permission to go outside? She trotted toward the door reaching out to where Lestrade dropped the brolly. What she found instead confused her completely.

"W-Where's the umbrella?"

"I left it on the coat rack?"

"No, you didn't. It's not here."

"What do you mean, '_it's not there'?" _Greg peeked up from his storage box, staring at where he had left the rain-shield. It was gone.

"That can't be right… certainly you can go outside without the thing?"  
"Ugh, whatever. I'll just go to the car without it."

A couple seconds later, Sally Donovan let out a frustrated huff of air.

"Boss, the doors' locked." She pushed harder on the only escape route. The doors didn't even budge.

"Locked? That's kind of impossible, isn't it? Didn't we just pull the doors open on the way in?"

"Yeah, but they aren't giving way now."

"I guess you don't need your phone charger now, we can cross that bridge when we get over it. Let's go look for Sherlock, alright?"

It was not Donovan's day. The small party of three couldn't shake off that nagging feeling in the backs of their minds. Something was slowly turning sour, and the only way to find out was to hopefully find Sherlock.

"Sherlock? Where could you possibly be at?" John cried out into the mansion.

A house on a hill. And John, Greg, and Sally were all locked inside.

* * *

_I can sense them._

_Foreign invaders, burning a hole in my mind. They haven't been here all but five minutes, and they have already looked through some of MY belongings like they own the place. I'm going to have to do major sorting later, all because of them. I haven't had such a vivid disturbance before, but their faces are fuzzy. Intriguing. _

_I should perform experiments on them._

_I took their umbrella and moved it to brother's room. Why they would bring such a stupid reminder of him into my palace is beyond my reasoning logic._

_I don't like them. I took years to sort through and make my palace perfect, and now some idiots are gallivanting through quicker than a migraine. They ARE migraines. They are breeches in security. I need to rid of them._


	2. Chapter 2

"Is it me, or all the hallways—"

"Re-arranging themselves? Mate, it's definitely not you."

For the past hour, the trio wandered the hallways in search of Sherlock. At least they thought it was an hour, they couldn't tell anymore. There wasn't a clock in sight; their phones and watches had all very conveniently stopped at the exact same time. John wondered if he was going insane.

The worst bit was how everything was so _clean_. The walls were barren of photographs and paintings, and the floors didn't even creak. The only noises the small group could hear were their own quiet footsteps and heartbeats, slowly quickening due to paranoia. A haunted mansion composed of dust was several times better then a mansion that was the rough equivalent of a mental hospital.

"So, Greg, why exactly did Sherlock come here?"

"Simple, really. He came to investigate a murder…"

"One question. Where's the murder? We have been looking through rooms for god knows how long, and there hasn't been a shred of evidence anywhere…"

"Good question, but I have a better one. Where's Donovan?"

The two men glanced around behind their backs into the empty hallways. Sally had disappeared.

"Great, another bit of bad news to add to our pile. _SALLY? _Oh god…" Overdrive mode kicked in as Watson and Lestrade began dashing throughout the hallways at an increased pace, searching for the missing was a victim of silence.

Thankfully Sally knows how to fight silence with screams.

"BOSS? John? I'm stuck…"  
"Stuck where exactly? I'm not a mind reader…" They ran toward the source of the voice, which was behind a wooden door.

"I'm locked in this room..Somehow. I'm not quite sure.. What was with this stupid house and its stupid locked doors?"

".. I have no clue. We are going to get you out, okay Donovan? John, go get something to break down the door. I have an idea." A simple nod of the head, and the army doctor was off searching through the nearby cluttered shelves. It seemed that the defining detail of the old house was the plethora of shelves, all fully stocked with items from end to end. He ran a hand over one of the many boxes, hoping that the cardboard would reveal some sort of ancient secret that held the key to existence. He chucked to himself quietly, a sort of sad quiet laugh that matched the predicament they were in. John really should have been looking for something to break down the door, but everything on the shelves was so _intriguing_ and distracting and…

John notices the neat cursive handwriting scrawled on the box. Titled '**Soil compositions of London**', it held a plethora of fragile vials containing exactly what it said on the box. Creepy, considering Sherlock was bantering on about that a while back. He glances at a jar labeled '**Tobacco ash types**' briefly before it clicks in his mind. So it's more than a coincidence, then.

"Oh." Is all John can muster up. Before completely losing track of what he was supposed to find, he finds a crowbar sitting against a table. He would consider how oddly convenient the find was, but had to save the Sergeant.

"How are you fairing in there?" After several attempts to open the door, by means of futilely kicking it down, and jiggling the lock around, Lestrade was exhausted. So he attempted small talk.

"It's… cold. And dark. We're in an abandoned mansion. What did you expect?"

"Can you describe what it looks like in there at least? There could be something in there that could help you get out of there."

"I can barely see, but it has more furniture then we have seen the entire time we have been here. I just want out of this madhouse, Greg. I've been getting chills ever since we have arrived."

John dashed down the hallway, holding his prize. He passed it off like a baton to Lestrade, who right away began to get cracking on the door that held their work mate.

"Took you long enough. Sally's been frightened half to death."

"Have not." Came a muffled reply from behind the door. "I can hold my own, ya know."

"It's not a mansion." John blurted.

"Whatdda mean it's not a mansion? " The detective inspector began pulling at the seam of the door with the crowbar, which was failing horribly. Was this _wooden_ door made up of solid medal?

"It's a palace. "

"A palace?" Lestrade replied with a small laugh.

"A mind palace. Sherlock's mind palace."

The other two snorted.

"That's completely silly. Isn't that what he calls his brain? Pretentious little…"

"I'm not joking. Whenever he goes into a trance or whatever, he goes to his mind palace. Apparently it's a way of storing information. Some people remember things better by recalling them as actual items in a house."

"And where did you learn that?"

"The internet. You end up having to search a _lot_ of stuff living with Sherlock…"

"But that's impossible. How can his mind come to life as an actual mansion? It would certainly explain this madhouse, of course the freak would set up a— _what's that_?"

"What's what? Sally? What did you see?"

"u-uh. Something in the shadows. I don't know. You might want to hurry up getting me out of here."

The look on their faces went from neutrality to complete panic in a fraction of a second. Nothing like a good old adrenaline spike to get the army doctor working. Both men pushed and pulled against the door as hard as they possible could. It didn't even budge.

"What are you? H-Hello? Is there anyone out there?" Her voice quickly transformed from a dash of fear to becoming overloaded with trepidation.

"Sally? What did you—"

"See? I don't kn—" She went silent, followed by a thud on the floor. She fell; and she was perhaps unconscious. In the mind palace, the horror didn't come from random noises skittering about, it came from the silence. The bittersweet silence. Trying one last time to open the door, John hits the door with the crowbar. It reflects with a metal _twang_ and falls to the ground.

"We've lost—"

Greg's sentence is interrupted when a _ring, ring_ echoes through the air. At the end of the hallway is an antique phone, probably from the early 1900's. And it was ringing. John shuffles toward it unconsciously, probably because he was scared of what was happening, more likely because it could be his friend. He approached shyly, staring at the old means of communication and taking in the ringing. He shyly picked up the phone, as if it were going to kill him.

"…Hello?"

"…John?" A static, baritone voice replied.


	3. Chapter 3

Sally learned very quickly that the shadows burned.

She refrained from telling the others, as it seemed like they weren't being burned by them. Now was not the day to be laughed at because the shadows hurt her.

And now she was locked in a room with little light and some sort of _thing_ creeping toward her. Was it Sherlock? She was told a minute ago that the mansion was actually just his overrated mind creating illusions. If that was the case, she knew that Sherlock's mind was the worst possible place for her to dwell. She did the only thing she could muster up the courage to do. Beg for mercy.

"Sherlock, please! I KNOW you can hear me!

Sherlock?!

"_Sherlock?_"

The repeated cries faded into the darkness, never to be heard by anyone other than herself. The world around her, it seemed, was collapsing and to dust. The shadows crept closer, watching, almost smiling in a way. She was going to die.

It figures that her life wouldn't end by gunshot, or by natural causes, or… by, _hell, _falling off of a bloody building. It would end in the demented dreams of a freak known as Sherlock Holmes.

"Please... If anyone is listening… Please, god, let me live…"

She was now cornered completely by the shadows that burned her flesh; she closed her eyes, waiting for her unruly demise.

"_John said the same thing when he was shot in Afghanistan… How...funny. Also, I didn't intend to kill you."_

She opened an eye to the statement_. Oh great_, she thought the psychopath or sociopath or whatever the hell he called himself was using telepathy to talk to her, to torture her. It was almost if the madhouse he called a mind palace torturing her wasn't enough.

"You…Weren't going to kill me?"

"_Of course not. I'm just going to make you pay for every mean thing you said to me, that's all."_

…What? She didn't understand. She didn't have time to.

The shadows shot forward, engulfing her body. She screeched at the pain, which only resulted in a deep throated laugh in her head. The pain-ridden shadows wrapped around her wrists and legs, constricting the sergeant and scorching her. The shadows wound around her limbs like barbed vines, tightening around her, making it hard to breathe. It was tight. Too tight. When she realized that the shadows were creating some sort of fabric around her, everything clicked together. It wove a beautiful-but all too familiar black tweed around her.

The bad part was that she didn't cry throughout the pain.

The worst part was that she didn't fight the process. She promptly passed out in the tiny corner of the room, comforted by a soothing voice in her head.

When she woke up, however, the voice and the shadows were gone. In its place was the mind of a genius.

* * *

"Sherlock?"

The reply from the old telephone was crackled, but the voice behind the static was unforgettable.

"John?"

"…_Sherlock?_"

"Oh, do shut up John. You know how much I loathe people repeating themselves. "

"Right… Where are you at?"

"Obviously, I'm in my mind palace." Well that confirmed John suspicions.

"Oh, like that helps. We've been looking for you for—"

"Time in the palace doesn't exist… It's hard to explain. I'm a tough spot at the moment… I'm stuck. I need you guys to find me."

"Yes, but find you where?"

"I can't specify. If I do that _it_ will punish me…" Oh, wonderful. The man that is most crucial to their survival is withholding information. This had to be John Watson's second worst day of his existence.

"…Sally's trapped…"

"Donovan? What's she doing in here? She doesn't care about me."

"Yes. But right now, she's unconscious behind a locked door. She might be _dying_, Sherlock. If this is your mind palace, then for god sakes, can you open up some doors?"

"I can try. I'm not really in control right now however. What room?" Watson glanced down the seemingly endless hallway, to see Greg still fiddling with the lock. The number was proudly hung on the door."

"Eleven."

A second later, the door made an audible _click _and creaked open slowly. Lestrade had tried practically everything to open the door, but in the end all they had to do was ask the consulting detective for help. So it was Sherlock's mind palace, after all. Greg rushed in, and before John followed suit Sherlock had one last piece of advice.

"In a world of locked doors, the man with the key is king. And honey, you should see me in a crown…" Watson wondered if Sherlock was delusional. He had certainly sounded like he was, and with that quote from Moriarty things weren't looking bright. Before John had a chance to reply, the phone went dead. He slowly trotted over to the new open door revealing the scene. Fortunately, Sally was alive. Unfortunately, something was horribly wrong. She sat huddled in a dark corner with glassed over eyes, whimpering to herself.

_"I'm sorry, Sherlock."_


End file.
